


Shared Spaces

by inelegantly (Lir)



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cohabitation, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F, Future Fic, Literal Sleeping Together, Moving In Together, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6497995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>The little apartment is four floors up in a building not far from the center of the city. It's equidistant from the university and from the small art college only a few thousand students attend, while the nearest train station is only a few blocks away. The elevator in the building might be finicky and the key money cost may have seemed a bit high, but Hanayo is delighted all the same that starting today, she can call the apartment her own. Along with it belonging to Rin and Maki, of course.</p>
</blockquote>A year in the life of Maki, Rin, and Hanayo, as they begin living together for the very first time.
            </blockquote>





	Shared Spaces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star of Heaven (rubylily)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubylily/gifts).



> You said in your letter that you like established relationships and characters moving in together, so that's what I chose to write. It's full of little headcanons and I hope that you like it!

* * *

The little apartment is four floors up in a building not far from the center of the city. It's equidistant from the university and from the small art college only a few thousand students attend, while the nearest train station is only a few blocks away. The elevator in the building might be finicky and the key money cost may have seemed a bit high, but Hanayo is delighted all the same that starting today, she can call the apartment her own.

Along with it belonging to Rin and Maki, of course.

* * *

"Careful!" Hanayo calls out, watching Rin stumble on her way down the hall.

The box in Rin's arms jostles halfway out of her hands but she catches herself, knocking it against her knee and laughing when she makes the save. "It's fine, it's fine!" she announces, throwing Hanayo a look over her shoulder that's all sunny smiles. "I got it, don't worry!" 

"You could stand to be a bit more careful," Maki chides, sliding around Rin and walking before her to the door of their new apartment at the end of the hall. "Hanayo is right." 

"But I caught it!" Rin insists, trotting to keep up with Maki and leaving Hanayo to follow from the rear. Hanayo's arms are likewise full of boxes, and she has no more words of her own to offer. 

"What if you didn't?" Maki asks, even as she slides the key into the lock, as she holds open the door for her girlfriends. 

(She insisted on paying the entirety of the key money herself, a blush high in her cheeks but stubbornness steeling her voice, making it clear that she would not be dissuaded. She insisted it was only fair, when Rin and Hanayo were allowing her to stay with them. Rin promptly told her that was stupid, when they were the ones who had to _ask._ )

"You don't think it's a little bit small?" Maki wonders, standing in the doorway as Rin and Hanayo pass her to walk inside. "It's not... Too little for the three of us, is it?" 

"Of course not," Hanayo says, putting her own quiet firmness into her voice. "It's the perfect size for us. The size just means that it'll be cozy." 

They set their boxes down inside, staring across the central space that they've yet to fill with any of their things. It's empty just then, bare floors and bare walls and the long windows of balcony doors standing sentinel across the room. Maybe it will feel empty for a while yet, as they bring in different pieces of three different lives. But for as long as the space remains unfinished, a work in progress, they will be there to fill it up together with their bodies and their laughter and their presence within its handful of rooms. 

"There's a lot we can do with a space like this," Hanayo continues. "Just you wait." 

"Yeah!" Rin chimes in. "Kayo-chin is right. It's up to us to turn a new apartment into a home!" 

When they glance back at her Maki is smothering a smile, though the slender curve of it is rising on her lips in spite of her best efforts. "That shouldn't be too hard," she admits. "We are best at doing things together." 

"That's the spirit!" Rin says, bounding over to her and throwing one arm around Maki's shoulders in an open-ended hug. She kisses Maki's cheek, loudly, ferociously, and Hanayo is treated to the sight of Maki's cheeks going delicately pink. 

"Let's go back downstairs," she says, bustling them both back out the door, if not before Rin catches her with her other arm and deposits against Hanayo's cheek a peck of her own. "We ought to finish moving in, while you have all this energy for running around."

* * *

The second bedroom in the apartment is east-facing, so that the light comes in through the windows golden and perfect. It's where Hanayo sets up her easel, with a little encouragement from Maki and a lot of persistent badgering from Rin, right in that warm pool of yellow sunlight. Sometimes Rin and Maki sit for her, and she sketches their portraits with the utmost of care.

The second bedroom is meant to be Maki's, for times when she needs a little space to herself. She says she doesn't have to be the only one — she keeps the bed neatly made, and all her things set to rights. If Rin or Hanayo ever wants a night to herself the option is there, layered with warm blankets and piled with a collection of childhood stuffed toys. 

She doesn't often use it. She does her homework at the desk and spends hours composing on that bed, lying on her stomach with a stuffed penguin clutched against her chest. But when night comes along and Rin and Hanayo ask for her, she ventures into their bed instead, every time. 

Rin jokes that they should replace the bed in the second bedroom with a piano, for all that anybody sleeps in it. If Maki only uses it for composing anyway, wouldn't she rather do so at the keys? Rin is laughing and nudging her, clearly having her on, waiting for Maki to protest and turn away. But she only hums thoughtful consideration to herself, because it's true she would love to have a piano in their home.

* * *

Sometimes, Maki comes home latest to the apartment, when she has her evening science lab or when she finds herself caught for long hours doing research in the library. Other times it's Hanayo, lingering on her campus for a late afternoon life drawing session or waiting to catch one of her professors during their infrequent and irregular office hours. Sometimes it's Rin who comes home last, having gotten caught up in an impromptu game on the green at the university and returning only once it's gotten dark, mud-streaked and victorious.

They know each other's schedules by instinct — oh, Maki is having a piano recital here; oh, Rin is running in a track meet there — and never question each other's little absences. Though they might each be alone in the apartment from time to time, such solitude never stretches on for long. 

They never get around to dividing the chores, though Maki is fastidious and Rin haphazard. They butt heads about how things are meant to be done, Maki insisting on particularities and Rin rolling her eyes before forgetting them the very next day. Hanayo is the one who keeps the peace, reasoning with both of them and coaxing Rin into cleaning with a treat here, a kiss there. Once she gets going, she's a force to be reckoned with, a duster in her hand and determination written across her face. 

They fall into a happy rhythm, living in each other's space, occupying each other's lives. They go to classes and see friends and sometimes even make time for dates — it's Maki's idea to go to the portrait gallery, while Hanayo is somehow the one to get them tickets to a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. But wherever they go out in the world, they always have a place to return to — a home, one they've fashioned together.

* * *

"Maki-chan, Kayo-chin, I'm home!" Rin calls out, throwing open the door so soundly that the knob makes an audible thunk against the opposing wall.

Maki is the only one home at the moment, jumping at the sound of the door banging open, at the boisterous noise that is Rin's shout into a space that had previously contained only pensive silence. Her hand jerks on the ladle she's holding, coming precariously close to splashing herself with hot liquid from the pot. 

"R-Rin!" she admonishes, though she gets no farther than that, her voice breaking around the name. 

"Maki-chan!" Rin calls again, bounding into the tiny kitchen area. "Are you cooking? What is it, that smells _so good._ " 

Maki blushes a little, turning away and busying herself with stirring the contents of the pot. It's only a home-made miso broth, nothing so deserving of Rin's fussing. She scoops a shallow spoonful of the broth out, blowing on it decorously before giving it a taste and setting the spoon aside. 

"I-I just... Thought I might try making dinner for a change," she admits, still not quite looking at Rin. "It isn't fair that Hanayo do all the cooking, when we aren't just eating conbini food or throwing together sandwiches." 

"I didn't know you cooked," Rin says wonderingly, from so close that Maki can feel her breath on the back of her neck. Rin is peering over her shoulder into the pot, staring at the steaming liquid. "We've been dating for over a year! I can't believe I didn't know." 

"It's not, that is, I don't cook," Maki manages to say. "Not really. But I thought I'd start." 

"So what are you making?" Rin asks, gently poking Maki in her sides so that she jumps, and laughs, and almost splashes them with hot soup again. "C'mon, c'mon, what is it going to be?" 

"Well," Maki says, glancing up at Rin with a tiny sliver of a smile. "Since you like ramen so much, I thought I'd learn to make some myself." 

"Maki-chan!" Rin exclaims, throwing her arms around her girlfriend and squeezing her tight. "You're the best!" 

"H-Hey," Maki protests, even as she's squeezing Rin back, the ladle dropped and forgotten. "I was trying to cook. If you have that much energy, there are vegetables on the other counter that need chopping." 

"Roger, Maki-chan!" Rin declares, letting go of her and bustling over to grab the chopping board. 

Maki doesn't say anything else, but as she turns away, the smile tugging at her lips pulls even wider.

* * *

It takes three movers, working beneath Maki's unflinching supervision, to maneuver the piano into their tiny apartment. She fears more than once that some part of it will break, but by the end of the day the instrument is set up in the second bedroom, wood gleaming brightly and bench pulled just slightly out from the place where Maki will sit at the keys.

Able to play in her own home, Maki swears that her composition is only getting better. 

It becomes familiar for Hanayo to come home to the tinkle of music wafting out toward the entryway, for Rin to start catching the door before she slams it, lest the sound jostle Maki out of her musical reverie. Too many times she'll look up from her playing only to see Hanayo fondly smiling, or to glimpse Rin's enraptured look, both of them standing just inside the door to the room with their bodies gone loose in relaxed contentment. 

At first, she would stop playing when she sensed them there, startled into shyness and not wanting her girlfriends to hear her in the middle of a piece she was still working out the trick to. But as with many other aspects of living together, the company becomes familiar, and Maki doesn't startle any more. Sometimes Rin and Hanayo make requests, and sometimes Maki plays old mu's songs, their melodies still so familiar that Rin and Hanayo can't help but sing along. Sometimes, Maki raises her voice and joins them. 

Those days, she finds, are among the best of them all.

* * *

The tree takes up one whole corner of the apartment, branches spreading out between the sofa and the bookcases and shedding their pine needles on everything. Rin and Hanayo have no idea where Maki has gotten it. She blushes when they ask, glancing aside and only mentioning that it's tradition, that her mother buys from the same person every year and she asked for the number.

"It's like a little piece of home," Hanayo surmises, when Maki explains. 

Hanayo's expression softens when she says it, and Maki can't help but relax in response. 

"Ohh?" Rin hums, leaning in close on Maki's other side. "Are you bringing your home in here with us?" 

"I thought I already had," Maki sniffs, defensively. But she swiftly thinks better of it. "You could... Both help me decorate it. If you like." 

"Can we?" Rin asks, immediately starting to rock on her heels. "Can we, can we? What do you have to decorate with? Let's do it!" 

Hanayo giggles, soft and fond, and Maki cracks more of a smile. She brings boxes of ornaments out from the second bedroom, shooing Rin back when she dives her hands toward the contents. They're all her favorites; she unwraps each one with care, peeling back the tissue paper to the sound of Hanayo and Rin's admiring "oohs" and "aahs." 

"My mother and I collected them," Maki says softly. "When we went on trips, or bought them out of magazines. She always said that Santa would visit good children wherever they might be, but that knowing was all the more reason to make the house look special." 

"They're beautiful," Hanayo murmurs. 

"Should we put them on the tree?" Rin asks, reaching out and flicking the hook dangling from one ornament with her fingers. 

Maki pushes the delicate filigree star into her hands. "That is the way to make things look festive. Go ahead, hang it on whichever branch you like." 

Rin hops up from where Maki has seated herself on the sofa, skipping over to the tree with the star in her hands. She scrutinizes it for a long, silent moment, eyes narrowed in thought. Finally she reaches up, hanging the star from a sturdy branch on the tree's right side. 

"There," Rin says, stepping back and admiring her placement proudly. "It's good, isn't it? Right? Right?" 

Maki stands up from the sofa, the box in one hand, her other planted against her hip as she makes a show of studying Rin's choice. Then she pushes the box toward Rin, flipping the lid up and presenting her with a look at the rest of the ornaments. "It looks perfect. Why don't you hang another?" 

They take turns choosing from the box and decorating the tree, laughing about their progress, talking about the holiday. Rin pesters Maki and Hanayo about presents, but when they ask her in return she only laughs in delight and won't say a word. 

"We should do something together," Hanayo says. "As a couple, for the holiday, I mean." 

"I wanted to bake cookies," Maki admits. "I have a recipe for gingerbread, and, well... I've never tried it myself, but I thought that we could." 

"I want to go out!" Rin declares. "I want to go ice skating, ice skating! It'll be fun, don't you think, Kayo-chin? Maki-chan?" 

Hanayo laughs, a bit self-consciously. "I'm not very good at skating." 

"But it'll be fun!" Rin insists. "And then we can come home and drink hot chocolate and make Maki-chan's cookies. It'll be a good Christmas date, the best!" 

"I don't mind," Maki admits. "I haven't gone skating in years." 

"It'll be the best," Rin says again, nodding smartly to herself and grinning a happy little grin. "Because it'll be with both of you, and even if it's cold and we fall down and get tired, we can pull each other up, and we'll go home together!" 

"Together..." Hanayo hums, glancing across at Rin, at Maki. 

"Together!" Rin agrees, throwing her arms wide and catching them around Hanayo and Maki's shoulders. 

For a moment they both stumble, then laugh, then they all stare up at the tree with three pairs of eyes. The ornaments wink in the soft apartment lighting, white and red and gold, standing as a testament to their group effort. Maki is the first of them to smile. 

"If you'd like to do something else together," she says, "I can teach you how to make Christmas garlands." 

Rin and Hanayo agree immediately, and Maki disappears into the kitchen to pop popcorn for the endeavor.

* * *

The winter is a cold one, finding Hanayo bundled into cozy sweaters, finding Rin donning her favorite cat-eared hat. They wear layers even in the apartment and keep their little heaters running whenever someone is home. Maki proves herself weakest to the cold, often found huddling miserably in the circle of warmth exuded from the heater or massaging her hands stiffly after taking them off the piano's icy keys.

They sleep piled together, cuddling closer than ever just to share in each other's warmth. Sometimes Rin is in the middle, flopping into bed exhausted and leaving her girlfriends to crawl in on either side. Sometimes it's Hanayo, lying on her back at the center of the mattress with Rin curled against one side, Maki against the other, each of them bracketing her like the coziest of quotation marks. 

Most often it's Maki in the center, climbing into bed early just to enjoy the warmth of piled blankets and sitting up reading until Hanayo and Rin come to join her. They never take long. They put out the lights and slide into bed, Rin curling against Maki's back and giggling softly in her ear, Hanayo turning towards her front and gazing at her through the bedroom's gloom, myopic with her contacts put away and her glasses left on the bedside table. 

Sometimes they whisper to each other in those quiet moments before sleep, talking about their days, about their schoolwork, about things they remember from high school together. They confide secrets into the winter dark, before drifting off to dreams that will only fade before the morning light.

* * *

Spring comes, and Hanayo buys a planter for their balcony outside.

"Whatcha doing?" Rin asks her, when she bursts through the doors bright and early one morning, breathing in deep from the brisk spring air. 

"I-I thought I might start to grow a few things," Hanayo says, blushing even as she smiles down at the loamy earth heaped in the window boxes hooked over the railing, at the little green shoots just starting to push up from the dirt. 

"Oooh," Rin hums, leaning closer and peering down at Hanayo's plants. "They're just little guys, aren't they?" 

"I only just planted them," Hanayo says. "But they'll get bigger. And once they do, I thought, well... They're herbs, and I thought I could use them in my cooking." 

"Your cooking is the best!" Rin proclaims. "What are you gonna make?" 

"Well," Hanayo says. "I have mitsuba, for soups, and shiso, for onigiri. And then I have some green onions, and lemongrass, and sage. A little bit of rosemary... A little bit of thyme... And basil, right here." 

As Hanayo is speaking, she points out each of the plants in their places within the planters and pots she's set up around the balcony, stopping with the last and looking up to Rin. There's an almost nervous smile on her lips, her fingers curled around the rim of the planter. 

"Basil... Like the kind Maki-chan likes on her tomato sandwiches?" Rin asks, her eyes lighting up in recognition.

"Y-Yeah," Hanayo says, her smile spreading a little bit wider. "Yeah, that kind." 

"That's great!" Rin says. "Do you need any help? Do you want me to water them? I want to see all your plants grow up big and strong, Kayo-chin!" 

Hanayo laughs, a soft, startled sound that bursts out of her before she reaches out and takes Rin's hand. She squeezes at Rin's palm and Rin pulls her in close, worming her arm to rest around Hanayo's waist. They look together at the newly-sprouting plants for a moment, before lifting their gaze toward the skyline, still stained pink and pale with the rising sun. 

"I bet Maki-chan is gonna love it, when you make her favorite sandwiches," Rin says. 

"I hope so," Hanayo agrees, before she pulls away, finishing her gardening so they can both head inside.

* * *

With spring comes the start of a new school year, both for the university in the city, and for the small art college only a few thousand students attend. The little apartment Rin, Maki, and Hanayo live in is still in a building with a finicky elevator, but it's also theirs, from top to bottom, filled with evidence of their hobbies, their hopes, and their dreams.

With the new year comes the end of their old lease, and with that the decision of whether to stay in the home they've made. Really, it isn't any decision at all. None of the three has any intention of leaving.

* * *


End file.
